


get myself back home

by PaperRevolution



Series: outer-space mover [4]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, F/M, Family, Gen, M/M, Major Illness, Past Sexual Abuse, Sibling Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 11:26:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12652617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaperRevolution/pseuds/PaperRevolution
Summary: Space AU. Aredhel's escape from Eöl and return home throws those around her into turmoil, Fingon is hit by a realisation, and Turgon tries to keep it together.





	get myself back home

**Author's Note:**

> 1.) Warning for discussions of past sexual abuse. It's by no means graphic, but it's pretty heavily implied.  
> 2.) I went ahead and made Lalwen the ship's doctor. Don't ask me why.

Turgon is reassembling a pistol after cleaning, when it happens.

The door to the munitions lockup slams open with a clang that rebounds like recoil. Turgon’s head jerks up, an admonishment already on his lips.

“Your sister, sir,” says the young man in the doorway breathlessly, “She’s—she’s back.”

Turgon feels as though he has been walking down a staircase in the dark and has suddenly, unintentionally missed a step. His stomach flips.

He sets the gun down on the table. Lets out a long, steadying breath.

The young man—Sub-Lieutenant Fountain—is white-faced, his grey eyes wide.

Swallowing, Turgon finds his voice. “Is she all right? Where—what happened?”

Fountain shrugs helplessly. “She—I don’t know. Sir. Elemmakil saw her shuttle approaching. She should dock in a couple of minutes. But she—”

His heart stutters. “She what?”

“She’s flying pretty erratically. I think she might—”

Turgon doesn’t wait for him to complete the thought. He’s on his feet in seconds.

*

Far off, distorted as though from underwater, Aredhel can hear someone saying her name.

Someone is leaning over her. Leaning close. Dark hair tickles her cheek.

Eöl.

Aredhel jerks feebly, twisting her head away. A wordless skein of sound unravels from the back of her throat.

“Irissë!”

The voice is urgent. And it’s not him. He never called her that.

She tries to lift her head. Tries to blink away the mist. Everything feels so heavy.

“Irissë! Ireth! Talk to me!”

She opens her mouth, and sounds fall clumsily out like cold, wet pebbles. They don’t sound like words.

The darkness rolls over her like a tide.

*

“It’s a slow-acting poison,” Lalwen says, her dark eyes flicking upwards momentarily to look at her brother, his wife and sons, standing close together in the flat blue-white light of the med bay. “She’s—We’re very lucky she got here when she did, though.”

Fingolfin makes a low, pained sound. Anairë wraps an arm around his waist, drawing him close.

“Will she be all right?” It’s Fingon who speaks. His eyes are locked on his sister as though he’s afraid she’ll disappear if he so much as blinks.

More to give herself something to do than for any real reason, Lalwen glances at the screen bracketed to the wall beside her. The uniform red-orange of its coda of lines and digits comforts her.

“I hope so,” her voice is soft. Anairë rests her head against Fingolfin’s shoulder. Fingon releases a long, audible breath as though to steady himself. Turgon stands like a stone, inscrutable. “We’ll just have to wait.”

She pauses for a moment. The air feels thick and close.

“There’s something else you should know,” she says.

All four of them look at her. What could be worse, their faces ask, than this?

“She’s pregnant,” Lalwen says.

*

“She’s pregnant.”

Fingon is surprised by how calm he sounds. The sick feeling that rolls and roils in his stomach refuses to go away.

From his seated position on the floor, his back against the blocky metal frame of the bottom bunk and an open book abandoned beside him, Maedhros looks up blankly.

“Irissë,” Fingon says, as though this needed any clarification. “She—That man who took her—That lowlife piece of—” He stops abruptly, suddenly aware that he’s faltering now. That he doesn’t sound calm anymore. “How the—How’s she going to live with this? How’s she supposed to live with what he did?”

Maedhros doesn’t say anything.

Fingon’s resolve cracks. “Why aren’t you angry about this?” he hears himself demanding. “You’re always angry! Even when you’re being really polite and friendly and whatever, you’re always angry! Why aren’t you mad now? How is this even slightly in the realm of okay? Can you even imagine what she—”

Abruptly, and in a graceless frenzy, Maedhros scrambles to his feet.

“No,” he blurts, too fast and too forceful. “No, I can’t imagine. How could I possibly imagine?”

The blank wildness in his expression is a new horror all of its own. It hits Fingon like the spinning g-force plummet of a crash-landing.

He opens his mouth to speak.

He has no idea what to say.

Maedhros turns sharply. Wrenching open the door of their little room, he bolts.

*

Aredhel’s eyes are shut slackly. Turgon can see the fine blue tracery of veins on their lids. 

The rise and fall of her chest is shallow; arrhythmic.

When they were children, she and Celegorm would come barrelling into his room like a pair of cyclones. Turgon would protest helplessly as they bounced on his bed and looted his cupboards for any sweets he might have squirreled away last time they went planetside. Aredhel had liked those sour little blue things you could get at Port Sirion. 

“…rukáno…”

Turgon snaps to attention. His sister blinks her eyes slowly, open and shut, open and shut. Her head lolls towards him.

“Turukáno…”

Her voice is dry and cracked but achingly familiar. He feels his chest expand with the release of a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. There are tears pearling the corners of her half-closed eyes.

“Hey,” he reaches out a hand, careful, to smooth a few strands of hair away from her face. “Hey, it’s okay now. It’s gonna be okay. You’re home.”

Aredhel shakes her head minutely.

“I’m really…I’m really sorry,” comes the thin croak of her voice again, “You said…You goddamn warned me…”

A knot tightens in Turgon’s throat.

“It’s not your fault,” he says, and his voice is all tied up in knots like hers. It’s hard to make the words come. “It’s not your fault. I promise.”

The words seem to calm her; to steady her breathing a little, so he repeats them again. And again.

“It’s not your fault. I promise you. None of this is your fault.”


End file.
